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The Descendants

Note from PW: Here’s another fantastic movie review by my friend Mark Spearman. The timing on this is perfect, as I just watched The Descendants last night for the very first time. All I can say is…”What Mark said.” Wow. I loved it. If you haven’t seen the movie, I highly recommend it.

By Mark Spearman.

At first, we hear only the sound. The pitched, angry roar of the obscenely powerful engines of a massive racing boat. The picture fades in on the face of a middle-aged blonde woman we will later learn is Elizabeth King. She is happy, exhilarated, blissful even, as the wind and sea spray whip her hair in all directions; she smiles broadly, squinting to see her way through the salt water and sun.

Elizabeth is waterskiing on a typically beautiful Hawaiian afternoon. Despite the lurches and swings of the camera, we see, behind her, powder blue sky and lush, puffy clouds. The sleek boat pulls her across the water at tremendous speed. Her smile intensifies. She breaks into a laugh. The picture fades to black.

A moment later, but weeks in the lives of the characters in this story, we realize that we’ve been witness to Elizabeth’s last moments on Earth. At least her last moments as a conscious, thinking-and-feeling person. She has been in a deep coma since the boat accident, and her husband, Matt, is soldiering through Day 23 of a solemn vigil.

These events shape the landscape of The Descendants, a movie from 2011 that at first blush, in the theater, I found to be quite a good movie. But after seeing it again on the small screen, I believe it to be a great movie. Maybe even an important one.

For some reason, watching it at home, the film struck me differently. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. So I read the book – the original novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings – and couldn’t stop thinking about that. The story is remarkable in its adherence to the physical laws of family, loss and betrayal, with characters expressing emotions and behaving in ways that feel real and true. It also acknowledges that grief is a process, unique to each of us, and a matter of some complexity.

The Descendants was criticized by some for not being edgy enough, or for lacking emotional oomph. Life is often dramatic, but not always cinematic. I suspect those critics wanted to see one of the characters break down in the shower and weep uncontrollably. Because for some reason movie characters love to break down, more than any other location, in the shower, and then weep uncontrollably. Sometimes fully clothed, sometimes not. Sometimes clutching a bottle of Jack Daniels, sometimes not. But they always weep uncontrollably and then slide, very, very slowly, down the tile wall behind them to the shower floor. And then they cover their faces with their hands and we’re clued in that something dramatic has happened. This movie doesn’t have that.

What this movie does have is a pretty good grasp of the mechanics of real life, where tragedy often ushers in a “new normal” accepted more quickly than we register in the moment. Where people do their best to push on through uncertainty and ambiguity. Where it takes time for the shock of loss to penetrate hearts and minds. A gray place where answers and closure come slowly, if at all. And a place, where, somehow, there are moments in which we cannot help but laugh at the tragic sting of it all.

Truth + Pain = Funny, and I’m always in awe of smart writers and directors who can sprinkle it in at just the right moments. Much of this revolves around Matt’s relationship with his daughters, 10-year-old Scottie and 17-year-old Alex. He has not been the most hands-on dad. And with Elizabeth gone, he’s getting a sudden introduction to the vagaries of daughterhood.

His puzzling thoughts on ten-year-old Scottie, for instance (a passage from the book): I hope she can’t see that I’m appraising her and that I’m completely worried by what I see. She’s excitable and strange. She’s ten. What do people do when they’re ten? She runs her fingers along the window and mumbles “This could give me bird flu” and then she forms a circle around her mouth with her hand and makes trumpet noises. She’s nuts.

Older daughter Alex is tough, smart, much like her mother, and the strongest of the lot. She has a rebellious history, a dark attitude, and intense anger toward mom for reasons she initially refuses to reveal.

The movie relies heavily on Matt’s voiceover narration. That’s a screenwriting device that some abhor as lazy storytelling, but in the hands of director Alexander Payne, who uses it to great in effect in his other films, like Paris, Je t’aime, About Schmidt and Election, it adds a layer of beauty and texture. The Descendants lifts many passages from the novel. Like this one, in which Matt, flying to the Big Island to fetch Alex from boarding school, gazes down at the scattered points of land that are home: “My family seems exactly like an archipelago – all part of the same geographic expression but still islands – separate and alone, always drifting slowly apart.”

Matt and Elizabeth’s marriage is seriously flawed, and, as Matt comes to learn, more so than he ever realized. I’ve heard it said that in every relationship there is a gardener, and there is a flower. Matt is the gardener, but not a very good one. That would be at odds with his path-of-least-resistance personality. Elizabeth not only needs close tending and attention, she has an addiction to risk.

She also likes to be take-charge, decisive, in control. Accordingly, she has a Living Will. No action is to be taken to artificially sustain her.

As her life slips away, Matt is tasked with “arrangements,” principally informing Elizabeth’s close friends and family that her time is limited. Yet he keeps encountering people who tell him everything is ok. They are well meaning, but, as people often are, allergic to unpleasant truths. “Elizabeth is a fighter, she’ll be fine,” he is told more than once, by people who then quickly change the subject.

It brought to mind a couple of books I’d read, the memoir of the writer Christopher Hitchens, and, sadly, a book published only two years later, in which he chronicles his last days, ill with cancer. He compares the experience of losing one’s health to the sudden deportation to a distant, foreign country, one he calls the “The Land of Malady.”

Hitchens calls it “a place where everyone smiles encouragingly … humor is a touch feeble… there seems to be almost no talk of sex, and the cuisine is the worst of any destination I have ever visited.” It’s also a place where people do not say quite what they mean, where they minimize illness as a battle, one in which we can prevail if only we fight. The unfairness inherent in that notion is that presumably, those who don’t survive just didn’t fight hard enough. Elizabeth is in this land now, but it is Matt who is left to deal with its odd customs.

He also grapples with the revelation that his wife was unfaithful. This news sets in motion a quest of sorts. In this matter, Matt is as much in search of who he really is as husband and father, as he is of his wife’s elusive boyfriend, a dimpled real estate agent he tracks down with Alex’s help.

Wait, there’s more, a complicated backdrop to Matt’s family troubles. He’s a descendant of Hawaiian royalty. Matt holds the deciding vote in a trust that owns thousands of acres of breathtakingly beautiful coastland, owned by his family since the early history of the islands. Most of his cousins want quick sale and a huge payday. The fate of this land will affect many; a decision is required by week’s end. On the surface, this situation has no connection to Elizabeth’s decline or his relationship with the girls, but as Matt ponders his obligations to family, it opens his mind to what is owed to the past.

There isn’t an iffy performance in the movie. Standouts are Shailene Woodley as the troubled but wise teenager Alex, and the great Robert Forster as Elizabeth’s angry, bitter, but ultimately tender father. As for Clooney, he is neither the suave guy in the tux showing just the right amount of cuff, nor is he a goofy caricature. He somehow manages to pull off ordinary and average, up to and including looking stupid running in flip-flops.

Saying something new about the subject of loss is a bold aspiration for a movie. There are so many that have sought to define, explain or quantify. Some of the finer that come to mind include Ordinary People, Sophie’s Choice, A River Runs Through It, Philadelphia… there are hundreds more, all the way to Lion King and Bambi, if you think about it. In fact, when you break it down, loss is one of a handful of themes you’ll find across all of the films ever made.

The Descendants certainly isn’t the definitive movie on the subject, but it does manage a certain quiet honesty. It reminds us that goodbyes are often complicated, layered with regret, anger, guilt, and a longing for what might or should have been that never really leaves us.

There’s a scene in the final act in which Matt, Alex and Scottie set out in a canoe to scatter Elizabeth’s ashes in the Pacific. They each take a turn pouring the contents of the urn into the water. Matt’s thoughts, excerpted here from the novel, will resonate with anyone who has lost a parent too early in life.

The girls paddle slowly, and Scottie stops and rests her paddle across the hull. Her back is hunched and she looks at her lap and I wonder if she’s crying. She turns, holding up her hand. “Mom’s under my nails,” she says. I look, and yes, there she is. Alex turns and Scottie shows Alex her fingers. Alex shakes her head and gives Scottie this look that seems to say, Get used to it. She’ll be there for the rest of your life. She’ll be there at birthdays, at Christmastime, when you get your period, when you graduate, have sex, when you marry, have children, and when you die. She’ll be there and she won’t be there.

We see them again, later, settled in at home. I’ll say of the ending only that I greatly admire any film that concludes with a quiet coda with modest ambitions. One by one, Matt, Alex and Scottie flop down on the sofa and watch TV. No words are spoken. They share ice cream and wrap themselves in a quilt, the yellow one that covered Elizabeth’s hospital bed.

It is neither cheerful nor dark, just an affirmation of the resilience of family. Because, more than anything, it is the simple rhythm and flow of ordinary life, minus one, that defines the struggle of those of us who remain.

Mark Spearman

Mark Spearman, a writer who lives in Oakland, California, loves unforgettable movies and great TV. A Midwest boy, Mark is a direct descendant of bold patriots of the American Revolution, yet understated enough to pass for a native Canadian.

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Comments

Once again, one of Matt’s reviews touches me in a way I didn’t think the movie he’s blessed with his words could. I’ll be seeing this one now. He hasn’t steered us wrong yet.

Christine...again...

Mark Mark Mark. Sheesh.

Christine...again...

Mark Mark Mark. Sheesh.

http://www.raineality.blogspot.com Rainey

This is on my “must see” list, and now, it has definitely moved to the top of that list. Thanks for the great review!

Heather H

I enjoyed the story of this movie, but I really, Really, REALLY didn’t like all of the “F” words used throughout the film. I felt the amount of “bad” language detracted from the performances.

http://www.chickenblog.com Natalie, the Chickenblogger

Nicely stated, Mark.

I would add that Island life and culture were captured, beautifully…

a significant and appreciable care was taken there.

Beverley

We read the book in my book club and I enjoyed it very much!

Gail

It IS a very lovely movie, for many of the reasons Mark mentioned. I tend to really get into soundtracks myself, how they can transport you into a time and place. They just add so much to a story. This is one of those that really adds another layer to the movie. You may not think you like Hawaiian music, but give this a try and you may just change your thoughts on that. Really perfect.

Great review on an understated movie, Mark.

Lisa H

wonderful, tender story and the scenery and island music added so much! loved it!!!

http://davisonacresoilfield.blogspot.com Kristin Davison

Mark.

Your movie reviews are absolutely poetic. I have not read one so beautifully written. Thank You.

Charlene

I loved this movie, i watched in on a cross country flight sitting in an aisle seat right by the bathroom… I had tears streaming down my face at times… I was transfixed, i would recommend this movie despite the fact I may have come across as a crazy pants when watching it 🙂

Debbie

Wow. I’m teary eyed just reading the review. This movie just moved to the top of my rental list. Thank you for a wonderful review of a movie I completely missed.

Judy

We had the privilege of attending a premier showing of the film, before it opened nationally, AND then the showing was followed by a Q & A hosted by Alexander Payne. AND then a reception, lots of fun!

“The Descendants” will forever by a movie favorite for me. Especially the quiet, calm coming together of the family, wrapped in their mom’s quilt, at the end.

Has anyone seen “The Artist”? (the movie that won the Oscar best film nomination last year). Also a good movie, but I was going for my hometown favorite.

Cat Cooks in WI

Another brilliant post from Mark. Very fine.

jaxc

Mark, you have a magic way with words. You nailed it in the paragraph about the “new normal”. Our lives changed instantly when my husband was in an accident that paralyzed him from the neck down. Our family’s reactions were all different, and none followed the “usual” movie version. I was faced with instantly switching from the flower to the gardener.

When he passed 10 years later, I realized I was not only mourning the loss of my beloved soulmate but also the passing of two lives, the one we had before his accident and and one we had after his accident. Thank you for so eloquently expressing the thoughts and feelings I have experienced.

http://justininsa.blogspot.com Claire H.

Mark, you have articulated much better than I ever could the reasons I loved this film. The concept of the ‘new normal’ which I didn’t realize until you stated, but not see 100% is so true-to-life and beautifully demonstrated in The Descendants, is one of the many reasons. I’m off to go read the book now, thank you, thank you, thank you(!) for this review.

Bonnie

Did not like the movie! The acting was very good, but I thought the script was weak.

Sarah A

I shouldnt read such posts early in the morning when I am still volunerable! I knew I wanted to see this movie before reading the review so this just increased the need to watch soon.

Nareht

Great movie. I just watched it a couple of days ago for the first time. Watch and enjoy!

Mr. Spearman, you are either a very gifted writer, or have personally gone though a loss (or maybe both). Your last sentance pretty much nailed it. Grief IS a very personal process, different for everyone, and something that only you can go through. In the end, it is about moving on, beacuse that’s what life does, it goes on. You have made me see this movie from a different perspective, thank you.

Bridget in Minnesota

Peace, Jaxc.

Talea

Amazon had this for a rental one weekend, so I tried it. Watched it once. Then a few hours later, watched it again and began to get the same sorts of reaction you did, Mark.

But I hadn’t quite processed it as well as you have. You are so right about how a sense of some acceptance after a family tragedy often comes more quickly than one might expect and how dealing with the fallout is a matter of unwrapping layers for years.

You’re a gifted reviewer. Thank you.

Sandi

Interesting. I’d only heard that the storyline was weak and while the kids were good, Clooney was unbelievable in the role. I had opted to just pass on it. Maybe I’ll watch it now. Then again, coming up on the 10th anniversary of losing my own spouse, this might not be the right time to watch it. (While I did do some crying in the shower, I never took a bottle of anything with me, and certainly never slid down the wall!)

jmk

While I didn’t love this movie, I like this review a lot. I thought George Clooney was the weakest actor of the bunch, and the movie was really overhyped. I thought it was a good movie, but not a great movie.